SEO in Switzerland - the tongue is paramount!
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There are as many as 4 official languages in Switzerland: apart from German and Italian, French and Romansh (otherwise known as the Romanche, one of Rhaeto-Romance languages subfamily) are spoken. Search engine optimization for Switzerland will therefore strongly rely on the language spoken in the canton that the online campaign targets. There are 26 cantons (administrative units) in Switzerland and any SEO campaign needs to depend on the language that's predominantly spoken by the inhabitants of a given unit. The most prevalent is obviously German - spoken by 65% of people in 19 cantons. French comes as the second, used by 23% of the people, followed by Italian spoken by 8% (mainly residents of Ticino). The most interesting, however, are Rhaeto-Romance languages, represented mainly by Romansh, which was accepted as an official national language of Switzerland only in 1996; spoken by approx. 40 000 people - i.d. 0.5% of the Swiss population - used mainly in Grisons. This is how it all looked in 2000: [caption id="attachment_3505" align="aligncenter" width="750"]What to look out for when doing business in Switzerland
Considering starting a business in Switzerland? Or maybe you just want to deliver products / services there? Before you decide, consider several points. particularly, the 3 below, that you will find helpful: The competition - before launching an SEO campaign for Switzerland, it's essential to conduct a website audit, which needs to include competition analysis: their target audience reaching strategies, their website UI solutions, and so on. The Swiss market is considered to be globally one of the most competitive, so online brand building is crucial. Which market segments are you targeting? Who's your audience? What tongue do they speak (out of 4 official languages and dozens of dialects on top of that)? Which cultural community do they belong to? What value, that you can deliver, they seek for? A good practice tip: pitch the global recognition of your brand, and the loyal customers already acquired.SEO in Switzerland - Suchmaschinenoptimierung Tipps
SEO in Switzerland is similar to SEO targeting German and English speaking countries. As pretty much anywhere, the 1st search results page is what counts, and - like anywhere - getting there is challenging. The Swiss, however, exhibit a distinctive online behavior - they are impatient and spontaneous - as many as 90% of Internet users click only the links ranked within TOP3. Only few users ever look at the 2nd SERP page. So, what’s your Switzerland SEO goal? TOP 10, at the very least. Let's begin with a look at the graph below, showing the search engines the Swiss mostly use.- Business, thematic and local directories link submissions. See a list of Swiss-domain SEO directories below:
- Forums - posting and linking on Swiss internet forums - however, for German-language forums, generally the moderation is strong, therefore posts need to be insightful and relevant, otherwise it's practically impossible to build links there.
- Content creation - creating high-quality content in the language spoken by the largest percentage of the website users.
- Local activities - best if targeting a specific town, where the company needs to build its brand or sell in. These can be links featured in articles or local business directories. You can go extra miles, such sponsoring local events. As a result, the company logo with a link should be featured on the event or town website.
- Content-rich blogs should be submitted to dedicated blog directories, for example www.blog-webkatalog.de/ (for blogs with German-language entries).
- Comments on blogs, although they do not have that SEO significance anymore, they can still help in the initial link building process - especially the dofollow links. It's best to keep comments industry-related, thus increasing the likelihood of getting users' attention.
- Some news portals feature information about new services or finished projects - they also can be useful SEO-wise.
- Of rather small, albeit still, significance, on the Swiss market are so-called article directories; such blogs/websites accept text entry + link submissions.
- Straightforward link purchase is very popular both on the Swiss and German market - for instance, a small sum can get you, e.g. 300 dofollow links on blogs. However, this solution is not recommended, as Google disapproves links built in a bulk or coming from low quality domains.
Hi Milena,
Thank you for this article with useful insights, data and hints that helped me for my SEO work on my own website in Switzerland.
Regards, Semra
Dies ist wirklich ein sehr guter Artikel. Es ist sehr nützlich, um eine Strategie für SEO zu planen. Vielen Dank für die Weitergabe dieses informativen Artikels.